Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. 2021 PRITZKER ARCHITECTURE PRIZE

We now know the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2021.
Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are the new winners!!

The official announcement of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (the date was announced last Monday) has just been announced from the Hyatt Foundation headquarters (Chicago, USA). The news has been released today at 09:00 am Chicago and 10:00 am (EDT) New York, 2:00 pm London, 3:00 pm (CET) Madrid, 5:00 pm Moscow, 10:00 pm Beijing and near Midnight (March 17th) Tokyo.

The award annually honors a living architect whose built work expresses the highest combination of talent, vision and commitment of "architecture". This highly respected international architecture prize is commonly known as the "The Nobel Prize of Architecture."

Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. Photograph by Laurent Chalet, courtesy of the Pritzker Prize

The 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate.
Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are the newly awarded Pritzker winners!

“Good architecture is open—open to life, open to enhance the freedom of anyone, where anyone can do what they need to do,” says Lacaton. “It should not be demonstrative or imposing, but it must be something familiar, useful and beautiful, with the ability to quietly support the life that will take place within it.”

Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, architects whose architectural practice is based in Paris, will be the recipient of the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are the 49th-50th Laureates of the Pritzker Prize, and the third and fourth to hail from France.

“Not only have they defined an architectural approach that renews the legacy of modernism, but they have also proposed an adjusted definition of the very profession of architecture. The modernist hopes and dreams to improve the lives of many are reinvigorated through their work that responds to the climatic and ecological emergencies of our time, as well as social urgencies, particularly in the realm of urban housing. They accomplish this through a powerful sense of space and materials that create architecture as strong in its forms as in its convictions, as transparent in its aesthetic as in its ethics,” according to the 2021 Jury Citation.

The last awardees were.-

2020 YVONNE FARRELL AND SHELLEY MCNAMARA
2019 ARATA ISOZAKI
2018 BALKRISHNA DOSHI
2017 RAFAEL ARANDA, CARME PIGEM AND RAMÓN VILALTA
2016 ALEJANDRO ARAVENA
2015 FREI OTTO
2014 SHIGERU BAN
2013 TOYO ITO
2012 WANG SHU
2011 SOUTO DE MOURA
.../...

The award consists of USD 100,000 (equivalent to € 84,266.50) and a bronze medallion with the inscription of "firmness, commodity, and delight", in reference to the classic Vitruve motto "firmitas, utilitas, venustas".

The prize takes its name from the Pritzker family, whose international business interests are headquartered in Chicago. Their name is synonymous with Hyatt Hotels, located throughout the world. The Pritzkers have long been known for their support of educational, scientific, medical, and cultural activities. Jay A. Pritzker, (1922-1999), founded the prize with his wife, Cindy. His eldest son, Thomas J. Pritzker, the current president of The Hyatt Foundation, explains, "As native Chicagoans, it’s not surprising that our family was keenly aware of architecture, living in the birthplace of the skyscraper, a city filled with buildings designed by architectural legends such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and many others."

2021 JURY

This year Alejandro Aravena returned to the jury and he was announced as new Chair of the Pritzker Prize, and Manuela Lucá-Dazio will replace Martha Thorne as Executive Director. The independent jury of experts ranges each year from five to nine members. Jury members, which have the mission of selecting the laureate each year, serve for multiple years to assure a balance between past and new members. The jury members are selected for their high recognition in their own fields of architecture, business, education, publishing, and culture. No members of the Pritzker family or outside observers are present during jury deliberations, which usually take place during the first months of the calendar year.

Alejandro Aravena, 2020-present (Chair 2021-present) - 2016 Pritzker Laureate
Barry Bergdoll, 2019-present
Deborah Berke, 2019-present
Stephen Breyer, 2012-present
André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, 2017-present
Kazuyo Sejima, 2017-present - 2010 Pritzker Laureate
Benedetta Tagliabue, 2014-present
Wang Shu, 2017-present - 2012 Pritzker Laureate
Martha Thorne, 2005-2021 (Executive Director)
Manuela Lucá-Dazio, 2020-present (Advisor)

Site for Contemporary Creation, Phase 2, Palais de Tokyo by Lacaton & Vassal. Photograph courtesy of Philippe Ruault

FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais by Lacaton & Vassal. Photograph courtesy of Philippe Ruault

Transformation of G, H, I Buildings, Grand Parc, 530 Units, Social Housing (with Frédéric Druot and Christophe Hutin) by Lacaton & Vassal. Photograph courtesy of Philippe Ruault

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More information

Anne Lacaton - Jean-Philippe Vassal. Lacaton and Vassal

Lacaton & Vassal. Anne Lacaton and Jean Phillippe Vassal created the office in 1989, based in Paris. The office has a practice in France, as well as abroad, working on various buildings and urban planning programs.

Anne LACATON was born in France in 1955. She graduated from the School of architecture of Bordeaux in 1980, and got a diploma in Urban Planning at the university of Bordeaux in 1984. She is teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Madrid since 2007, and was invited in 2011 at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne, as well as in Harvard GSD Studio in Paris in 2011.

Jean Philippe VASSAL was born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1954. He graduated from the School of Architecture of Bordeaux in 1980. He worked as an urban planner in Niger from 1980 to 1985. He is professor at UdK Berlin since 2012, and has been a visiting professor at the TU in Berlin in 2007-2010, and at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne in 2010-11.

Main Awards, the Grand Prix National d’Architecture, France, 2008, the Rolf Schock Prize, visual arts category, Sweden 2014, the Daylight & Building Components Award, Velum Fonden, Denmark, 2011, and the International Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2009, the Equerre d'Argent award 2011, with Frédéric Druot, France. Their work has been shortlisted several times and twice finalist for the Mies Van der Rohe Award, European Prize for Contemporary Architecture.

The main works completed by the office are: the FRAC, Public Contemporary Art Collection, in Dunkerque, France; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Site for contemporary creation ; social housing and student housing in Paris ; a music and polyvalent hall in Lille ; the Café for the Architektur Zentrum in Vienna ; a School for Business and Management in Bordeaux ; the Architecture school in Nantes, and significant housing projects in France such as the House Latapie, Bordeaux ; the House in the trees, facing Arcachon Bay, the "Cité Manifeste" in Mulhouse. They are now working on the transformation of modernist social housing : the Transformation of Tour Bois le Prêtre in Paris (with Frédéric Druot, architect), in St Nazaire la Chesnaie and in Bordeaux Grand Parc (with F Druot and Ch. Hutin, architects). All these projects are based on a principle of generosity and economy, serving the life, the uses and the appropriation, with the aim of changing the standard.